The Road to Burgundy

Ray Walker didn't even like wine until he took a sip of a startlingly amazing wine in Italy. He was hooked. He single-mindedly began a quest to learn everything he could about wine. And, against the advice of everyone who knew anything about wine, he decided, after reading books about wines and tasting wines and serving a short apprenticeship to a winemaker, to throw his family's life savings into an attempt to make his own wine. In France. Though he'd never made wine before. And though he is an American. And though he and his wife had just started their family in the San Francisco Bay area. And though he knew almost no one in France. And though he spoke very little French.

A fairy tale of a story. It will inspire you, I think, to go after your dreams, even when you don't have all the credentials others might expect of you.

Caution: it's not a beautifully written story; Walker's confidence extends past winemaking-without-experience into writing-a-book-without-experience (and even into taking-a-photograph-for-the-cover-of-your-book-without-experience). But it's Walker's enthusiasm and energy and amazing American can-do-it spirit that carry you through the story.